Puer delicatus
by TheMadKatter13
Summary: [TTF 56/SWN 11] on-the-star-side said: Sorry. Me again. Another prompt. Shota tiny Sherlock, hunky buff soldier John. AU; Adult Gladiator John / Shota Slave Sherlock


**SUMMARY: on-the-star-side said: Sorry. Me again. Another prompt. Shota tiny Sherlock, hunky buff soldier John.**

 **AO3 TAGS: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Ancient Rome, Gladiators, Gladiator John Watson, Slavery, Slave John Watson, Slave Sherlock Holmes, Underage Sherlock Holmes, Shota Sherlock Holmes, Eunuch Sherlock Holmes, Extremely Dubious Consent, Rape/Non-con Elements, Virgin Sherlock, Loss of Virginity, Anal, Anal Fingering, Top John Watson, Bottom Sherlock Holmes, Anal Sex, Prompt Fill, Spitefic, Catamites, Size Difference**

 **AN: lol No need for you to apologize, but I do. Because this is laaate. lol Hope you don't mind that I moved the time period a little, but it was the first thing to come to mind and I _had_ to. lol Although, it did lead to 5+ hours of research that I'm mostly not using but am still using some of.**

 **There were a lot of different types of gladiators, typically named for their types of weapons, shields, and/or armour. I figure John for a _cestus_ , a fist-fighter/boxer named for their knuckledusters (called _cestus_ ) - basically a battle (boxing) glove, made with leather strips and sometimes filled with things like metal plates and blades (think disguised brass knuckles). ( _Cestus_ were abolished in 393 AD due to, hilariously enough, excessive brutality.)**

 ** _Puer delicatus_ : basically a beautiful, delicate (young) boy toy; sometimes called _deliciae_ : 'delights', as in sweets (candy). These boys are often castrated before puberty to help retain their youthful androgyny, and if they can sing, to retain that particularly high range young singers lose once they hit puberty.**

 **EDIT: Don't think I've ever been accused of not being kinky enough before but it happened, here, today, so I've made some edits. If they're not enough, well… ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯**

* * *

The crowd cheered and screamed as John stood tall and proud in the center of the coliseum, his opponents all laid out unconscious around him. He lifted his face to the sun, feeling it beat down on his bare skin, drying the blood trickling down his chest and shoulder blade and leg. It had been his tenth battle. And his tenth victory.

Today was a good day to be alive.

After he'd returned home, had been cleaned and massaged by his caretakers, and dressed in a tunic, his master called for him, as he'd promised.

"It's as if you've been blessed by Mars himself!" Master greeted him jubiously. John bowed his head in both acknowledgement and thanks, but remained silent. His master could be a rather temperamental man, prone to mood shifts too fast to track, and John had no desire to be the cause of a swing to the negative. "Or perhaps Fortuna herself, with all the winnings you have gained me. Well, I did promise a great reward if you managed to win ten contests. Do you desire to become a freedman?"

John shook his head. "No, Master. It pleases me to serve you and to fight for you. What I desire is to take that boy as my catamite." All servants and slaves of his Master's house were too well-trained to stop what they were doing because of John's words, but there was still a moment were it felt as if Saturn himself had paused the path of the sun in order to acknowledge the gesture of John's hand towards the young, pretty boy at the back of the room.

Master, being the master, turned his head freely to look, head tilting as if taking in the boy whose hair was so dark and skin so pale as to be a child of Diana. "You there!" he called, and though none of the servants were 'looking', they all knew who their master meant.

The boy obediently hurried over, head bowed even when he came to a standstill. Their Master circled him, squeezing his arms, tilting his chin up, and finally lifting up the boy's tunic to eye where he'd once had testicles and now only had a scar - the sign of a eunuch. It was a little unexpected, but with a face like that, John was hardly surprised. And it wasn't as if it made a difference to John's purposes. At last, Master nodded and looked back to John.

"You may keep him until you die or lose a contest," Master declared imperiously. "If you lose but live, you shall watch your successor win your catamite instead."

Even though the thought of another touching his prize sent jealousy spiralling through John's chest, the fact that the boy he'd had his eyes on for years was finally his made an uncontrollable grin split his face. "Then I must never lose," John said, and bowed.

* * *

"Are you nervous?" John asked, reclining naked on his cot - it sometimes felt more natural to be without clothes than with, being that he spent most of his time training or fighting, and all of that in a loincloth at most. In opposition, his catamite stood across the room still dressed, eyes downcast as if avoiding the way John was slowly stroking his cock to life. Not that it needed the help, with how excited he was, but the touch was pleasant either way, the stroke of his callouses against the delicate skin.

"No," the boy, finally answered, but he didn't look up and he didn't move. Even from across John's small room, he was still closer to the boy than he'd ever been and this close, he looked even younger than John had originally guessed. A handful of years at the most. Still, all slaves, no matter their ages, knew that their masters and mistresses could use their bodies at any time they wished. It just wasn't often that they were used by other slaves.

John reached over to pick up his small jug of oil and tipped some over his cock, slicking the way for the roughness of his hand. "Then come over here and strip," he commanded, beckoning.

The boy shuffled forward, though his hands remaining linked together in front of himself.

"If I have to tell you again, I'll cut your tunic off," John warned.

"Slaves can't carry knives," the boy said.

John smiled, surprised and pleased by the boy's verve, and nodded in concession. "Perhaps not, but I can still rip it off," John said, sitting up and snagging the rough wool of the boy's clothes, making him gasp. John raised an eyebrow and the boy finally acquiesced, hurriedly stripping. It had been some time since John had had a eunuch, and he curiously traced the scar below the boy's small cock, barely larger than John's thumb, even lightly plumped as it was. "Can you sing?"

"No," the boy answered shortly, as if annoyed, which only served to amuse John more.

"Have you ever been fucked before?"

"No," the boy answered even shorter and this time, John laughed.

"Good," John purred, wrapping his fingers around the boy's wrist and pulling him into his lap, making the boy cry out in surprise, a sweet sound of inexperienced youth. This close, the boy was almost statue-like in the perfection of beauty, and it was almost amusing how small he was in John's lap, legs and arms thin and spindly, like fawn legs. John was not considered a large man in stature but between his muscles and the boy's minimal years, he positively dwarfed him. "I'm a lucky man then. And you're a lucky boy. I may not be as gentle as some but I'm not as cruel as others."

He gave no warning before he tipped the boy onto his back and promptly poured some oil over the scar, watching it trail down over the boy's taint to his hole.

"You're a _cestus_ ," the boy said, voice tightening when John pressed his thumb to the tight ring of muscles, massaging it, opening it. The thickness of his thumb was almost wider than the boy's hole and he licked his lips at the thought of forcing his cock into it.

"You've seen me fight?" John asked, pushing his finger in and demanding the muscles to yield to his will.

"N-no," the boy stuttered, face and petite body going tight at the penetration.

"Is that the only other word you know how to say?" John asked, amused, and in a good enough mood to tease.

"No," but this time the boy smiled in return, expression almost smug, teasing John back. But then, to John's slight surprise, he kept talking. "Your knuckles are scarred from the plates, and all your other scars are defensive. Except for this one." Small, thin fingers, touch the gnarled scars on John's shoulder, the middle of the three thicker than the two on either side. "You were distracted - a trident caught your shoulder."

John shoved a second finger into the boy, who yelped, short and high, at the stretch. "I thought you said you hadn't seen any of my matches," he said lightly, interested by the boy's near-lordly speech patterns but annoyed that the boy was trying to lie to him.

"I haven't," the boy insisted, frowning. "I can read your history in the pattern of your scars."

Surprised into silence, John sat back on his heels, blinking. "I thought you a child of Diana but it would seem you're might be a child of Apollo," he murmured, the boy's high speech suddenly making more sense as a vision from the gods.

"I'm a child of Wanda," the boy said testily.

John grinned at the denial and wrapped his hands around the boy's ankles, spreading his legs. "Oh? And what did Wanda call you, if not blessed?"

"She called me Sherl-AH!"

"Sherlah?" John asked with a mocking smile, coming to a rest with the length of his cock inside the boy. The boy who was so small that the size of John's cock was such that it was almost as he'd crucified his catamite.

He received a glare, tainted with a grimace of a pain. "My name," the boy said through clenched teeth, fingers wrapped tight in the blanket and walls holding John so tight that he thought the head of his cock might pop like a grape, "is Sherlock."

"Well, Sherlock," John drawled, licking his lips and settling his weight onto his heels and into his thighs as he luxuriated in the sensation the youth wrapped so tightly around him, "my blessings from Mars are well documented, but it's time to show you how Venus has blessed me as well."

Sherlock opened his mouth, but when John jerked his hips back and then forward, the sounds that came out were distinctively Not Words, and he almost complimented the eunuch's singing. Instead, John's own mouth was occupied with a vicious grin as he pulled hard on the boy's ankles, bringing his round arse onto John's knees. With the next thrust, Sherlock arched his back into the air, sounds disappeared into a silent, wide-eyed scream.

The curve of Sherlock's arse was lush for a boy so young and fit easily into John's hand. Arousal curled tight in John's groin as he squeezed the flesh in time with his thrusts, easily lifting the slight weight of his catamite and holding it up at the hips, keeping them at just the right height so as not to disrupt the rhythm he was fucking into the tight hole as he fell forward. John caught himself with his other hand above the boy's head, which didn't even come to his shoulder. In fact, the body below his was so slight and small that John doubted that even the gods above could see Sherlock, covered as he was by John's muscular bulk except for where pale legs spasmed around the width of John's waist.

Unfamiliar fingers, small, pale, and spasming, trembled like weak spiders up John's arms. At the same time they reached John's biceps, so large that the fingers couldn't hope to circle them even with both hands, John fucked forward hard enough to force a grunt from his own throat and nails dug into his flesh. John looked up at that, half unaware that his head had dropped at all and finding the act almost as difficult than standing after a battle, but there was no awareness on his catamite's sweet face - eyes glazed and soft mouth parted and oh so tempting. One day John was going to have to fall asleep with that throat wrapped around his cock.

Eventually, Sherlock's fingers found purchase around the curve of John's shoulders, and nails, small but sharp, scored the flesh over John's shoulder blades. Overwhelmed with pleasure, his little _Puer delicatus_ had managed to leave his own mark of victory on John's skin as most he'd faced in the coliseum had never been able to. One particularly savage claw, nearly to his ribs, shot heat all the way down to John's toes, and he dropped his face, and his teeth, into the boy's shoulder, biting down hard enough to provoke Sherlock's nails into drawing blood.

"Fuck," John growled, leaving behind the imprint of his mouth in the soft, pale skin as all the heat of Vesuvius flooded his being. His release was primed and he just needed-

He'd barely touched the tip of his fingers to Sherlock's tiny cock before the eunuch's arse spasmed tightly around John's cock, pulling his orgasm from his testicles as surely as if John had stripped his cock himself. Unable to help himself, John sank his teeth back into that sweet flesh as pleasure swept through him, his hips rocking and pushing harshly forward to encourage those soft wet muscles to drain him of all his seed.

Harsh breaths stirred the air and Sherlock's sweat-damp curls as John luxuriated in the fading ecstasy of his orgasm and the easing ripples of the muscles around his cock. His release left him feeling pleased and relaxed, but with a growing awareness that his position, suspended over the youth's trembling body, was not conducive to true relaxation. Without so much as a grunt of effort normally required by the maneuver as done with older lovers, John easily kept the boy on his cock as he brought Sherlock's scant weight with him when he rocked backwards onto his heels, keeping his momentum until he fell against the wall.

Sherlock collapsed bonelessly, expression almost shocked, against John's chest, hair tickling John's chest and breath tickling John's nipple as John's hand settled at Sherlock's crack, John's middle finger just long enough to feel where his cock was still piercing the boy. He lazily played with the muscle, tugging at Sherlock's rim, amused by the way it eagerly grabbed at his cock when he let go, as if it couldn't bear the thought of not being plugged up and stuffed with seed and cock. Sherlock's own release was wet and slippery between them and John swept his free fingers through the mess. He painted the seed over a tight pink nipple with calloused fingertips, grinning and shivering from overstimulation when the boy spasmed on his cock, pulling the muscle from the hook of John's finger. Which only encouraged him to do it again and again until his cock started to grow hard again.

Sherlock made a confused sound at the swell of flesh inside him, small hands planting on John's shoulders, body lifting as if he was going to get off John's cock. John _tsk_ ed and easily tugged him back down, lazily fucking up into the downward motion and making the boy whimper. "What-?" his little lover slurred, eyes still glazed like he'd been hard at the wine.

"I told you that I was not cruel," John reminded him, easily bouncing the slight weight in his lap up and down his cock. "But I also said that I was not kind." The fingers on his shoulders curled, nails scoring him yet again. The thought that his catamite would leave him as scarred as years in the coliseum made him inordinately pleased. "I never train the day after a fight." Grey eyes finally managed to focus on John's face, on the wicked grin pulling his lips. "The night and day after a fight," John whispered, " _I fuck_."

Being bounced on a cock was sure to confuse any catamite, but eventually, John's meaning sunk in and a look of dawning horror and understanding came to light on Sherlock's face. It was enough to send a savage glee through John's heart and a savage grin across his face. His pleasure made him forget himself for a moment and he fucked up harder than he had been, hard enough to make Not Words fall from Sherlock's lips again.

It had been so long since John had had a eunuch. This one was now his, but between winning a fight and this gift, there was no reason not to celebrate from now until the morrow. And John would celebrate until long after his catamite could take no more.

And perhaps a little more even after that.

FIN

* * *

 **I think I picked this up and put it back down at least 3 different times. It's terrible wanting to write and not being able to. Not even something this short. Even still, I think trying to write this took less time than it took to drag me out of the Wiki rabbit hole re: Rome (as evident by nearly having as much notes as smut).**

 **God(desse)s Mentioned:**

 **\- Mars - Roman god of war (Greek: Ares)**  
 **\- Fortuna - Roman goddess of fortune (Greek: Tyche)**  
 **\- Saturn - Roman god of time (Greek: Cronus)**  
 **\- Diana - Roman goddess of the moon (Greek: Artemis)**  
 **\- Apollo: god of poetry, music, and oracles, and of light, knowledge, intellect, and the sun (Greek: also Apollo)**  
 **\- Venus: goddess of beauty, love, sexuality, and, apparently, gardens (Greek: Aphrodite)**

 **Sherlock's mom doesn't have a canon name so I named her after his real mom cuz that's how I do.**

 **There were several types of crucifixions in Rome alone, one of which was spearing the victims through their private parts with wood beams/poles. (Crucifixion existed in additional forms throughout the world, some even before the invasion of Christianity.)**

 **Mount Vesuvius has erupted many times, but most notably: the 79 AD explosion that destroyed Pompeii.**

 **Ancient Romans were pieces of shit. This concludes my TED talk.**

 **Like the thing? Reblog the thing ( themadkatter13fanfiction tumblr, tagged/Puer-delicatus )**


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